The Assyrian practice was to deport the people of a conquered territory to other corners of their empire and repopulate that evacuated territory with foreigners.
So the Old Testament tribes that had inhabited the Northern Kingdom were relocated, lost their identity and are now lost to history.
The foreigners who were relocated to the Holy Land brought their pagan worship practices with them. They built their altars and offered their sacrifices to their foreign gods.
This displeased the God of Israel as His Holy Land was being violated by idolatry. So he punished these relocated foreigners.
They cried out to the Assyrian king for help. In response, a priest of the God of Israel was drafted to return to Israel and teach these foreigners how to worship God properly.
I don't suspect that this priest relished his assignment. True, he was able to return to his homeland. But now it was occupied by foreigners who were not at all like him.
Nevertheless, he did his job. No doubt he not only taught them the way to worship the God of Israel, but also why they ought to worship Him.
He would teach the story of creation and God's love for His first children, even after they rebelled against Him.
He would teach about God's judgment of a wicked world but His mercy for a man named Noah.
He would teach them about the covenant that God established with Abraham, the promise of land that God swore to give to Abraham's descendants.
He would teach that God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt through the leadership of Moses and how He brought them into the Holy Land under the leadership of Joshua.
This priest's teaching yielded mixed results. Although the foreigners began to worship the true God, they continued their pagan worship practices as well. Nice try, nameless priest. (2 Kings 17)
Fast forward 750 years to the ministry of Jesus. The descendants of those ancient foreigners became known as Samaritans. By Jesus' time they had long forsaken their idolatrous ways. They worshiped God according to the teachings of Moses and were eager for the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus spent time in conversation with one of these Samaritans, a woman, who came to realize that Jesus was more than a prophet. He was, in fact, the Messiah she was waiting for. She became her town's first evangelist and invited her neighbors to see this Jesus. (John 4)
When Jesus healed a group of lepers, only one came back to Him, praising God and offering his thanks to Jesus. That one was a Samaritan. (Luke 17)
Is it too far a stretch to think that the seeds of grace sown by a nameless priest, added to and watered by others over the generations, took root and bore fruit 750 years later? I don't think that's a stretch at all.
As Greg Finke writes in his book Joining Jesus on His Mission, "Jesus speaks of little seeds through which God grows mighty works. Our job is not the mighty works; our job is the little seeds."
A nameless priest planted little seeds 700 years before Jesus was born. God grew the mighty works.
What seeds can you plant today?
A seed of hope
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